The Global Housing Shortage in Numbers

Published on: August 6, 2026

Last verified: 6 August 2026. Estimates are quoted as published by the named institutions; methodologies differ, as explained below.

Quick answer: The most cited estimates are 4.7 million missing homes in the United States (Zillow; mainstream estimates cluster between roughly 4 and 5 million), a record 1.4 million in Germany (Pestel Institute), 3.5 million additional homes needed in Canada by 2030 (CMHC), a backlog of about 4.3 million in the UK (Centre for Cities), and 1.6 billion people in inadequate housing worldwide (UN-Habitat). The figures measure different things, backlogs, affordability targets and political pledges, which is why they range so widely, and construction is running below requirement in almost every country on the list.

Almost every wealthy country now says it is short of homes, but the numbers behind the headlines come from very different places and mean different things. This page collects the most cited housing shortage estimates, names the institution behind each one, and explains why the figures range so widely, because a shortage is not a physical count like empty homes; it is an estimate of the gap between the households that exist (or would exist) and the homes available to them.

The headline numbers, with their sources

A note on reading the table: these are not comparable line by line. Some measure a backlog of missing homes today (Zillow, Pestel, Centre for Cities), some measure what must be built to hit an affordability goal (CMHC), and some are political targets rather than estimates (UK, Australia). That is not sloppiness; it is the nature of the question, as the next section explains.

Why the estimates disagree

Take the United States, the most studied case. Zillow's method compares homes added to the stock against families formed and adds families currently doubled up with others who would form their own household if they could; that yields 4.7 million and rising. Up for Growth measures "underproduction" against historical household formation trends and gets 3.78 million. Freddie Mac's earlier benchmark was 3.8 million. The Congressional Research Service, surveying them all, lands on "roughly 4 to 5 million" and notes that some economists question whether a national shortage exists at all, arguing the real deficit is affordable homes in specific high-demand places rather than raw units nationwide.

Three assumptions drive most of the spread everywhere:

1. Hidden households. Do you count the adult living in a parent's basement, or the two families sharing a flat, as missing households? Zillow does; more conservative methods do not. This single choice can move a national estimate by millions.
2. Which vacancies you net out. A market needs some empty homes to function. How much of the vacant stock you treat as genuinely available changes the arithmetic, and it is why a country can have both a shortage and millions of empty homes, the paradox we map in the world's empty homes. The empty homes are overwhelmingly not where the missing households are.
3. The affordability benchmark. CMHC's famous 3.5 million is not the number of missing homes today; it is what Canada must add, on top of current building rates, for prices to return to 2019-style affordability by 2030. Change the target year or the affordability ratio and the number changes with it.

The gap between building and need

The shortfall persists because construction is running below requirement almost everywhere, even in good years:

• The US completed 1.45 million homes in 2023 and 1.63 million in 2024, the best totals since 2007, and the deficit still grew, because household formation ran ahead of it. The deficit's growth has at least slowed.
• Germany needs roughly 400,000 new homes a year on Pestel's arithmetic and has been completing a little over 200,000, with completions trending down.
• The UK's 1.5-million-home target implies a building rate the country has not sustained since the 1960s.
• Canada's required 430,000 to 480,000 homes a year compares with recent completions far below that level.

Behind the arithmetic sit the same constraints in every country: restrictive zoning and slow permitting, construction labor shortages, high financing and material costs since 2022, and local opposition to density. A 2025 RAND comparison found building multifamily housing in California costs more than twice as much as in Texas, driven largely by policy rather than materials, a reminder that shortages are mostly made, not fated.

Who feels it

A shortage does not distribute itself evenly. It lands on new entrants: the young, migrants and renters, which is why first-time buyer ages keep climbing (see the average age of first-time buyers by country) and why the crunch has become a generational story, one we tell in Gen Z and the global housing crisis. It is also why rent regulation keeps spreading; caps are politically faster than construction, though they cannot add homes, as the evidence in rent control around the world shows. The EU has responded institutionally too, appointing its first-ever Housing Commissioner and preparing a European Affordable Housing Plan, a signal of how far up the political agenda the numbers above have pushed the issue.

What this means for buyers and investors

1. Shortage markets are seller's markets in the segments that matter. Deficits concentrate in economically strong metros and in family-sized, affordable stock; luxury segments can be oversupplied in the very same city.
2. Political risk rises with the shortage. The bigger the deficit, the more likely foreign-buyer taxes, rent caps, short-term-let restrictions and vacancy levies become. Canada's foreign-buyer ban and Europe's spreading rent rules both grew from these numbers.
3. Targets are not supply. A government pledge of 1.2 or 1.5 million homes changes sentiment, not availability, until completions actually move. Watch completion statistics, not announcements.

Frequently asked questions

How many homes is the United States short?
The most cited current figure is 4.7 million (Zillow, based on Census data), with mainstream estimates ranging roughly from 3.8 to 5 million depending on method. The shortage of rentals affordable to extremely low-income households is 7.1 million (NLIHC).

How big is Germany's housing shortage?
The Pestel Institute put it at a record 1.4 million homes at the end of 2024, with up to 2.4 million new homes needed by 2030. Earlier and narrower methods produced figures between 550,000 and 800,000, which still circulate.

Why does Canada need 3.5 million homes by 2030?
That is CMHC's estimate of the additional supply, beyond current building rates, required to restore affordability to around 2019 levels, not a count of homes missing today. About 60% of the gap is in Ontario and British Columbia.

Can a country have a housing shortage and millions of empty homes at once?
Yes, and most do. Vacant homes concentrate in shrinking regions and unusable stock, while missing homes concentrate in growing job centers. Japan, Spain and the US all illustrate the mismatch.

Is there a global housing shortage figure?
No single credible one for market housing. The closest global measure is UN-Habitat's estimate that about 1.6 billion people live in inadequate housing, a broader concept that includes quality and security of tenure, not just unit counts.

Keep reading on JanusHermes

Shortage numbers explain why the politics of housing keep tightening around buyers, renters and landlords alike. JanusHermes aggregates local agency listings across more than 50 countries in 11 languages, with the local agency's contact details on the listing.

For the other half of the paradox, see the world's empty homes. On who the crunch lands on, read the average age of first-time buyers by country and Gen Z and the global housing crisis. On the policy responses, see rent control around the world and why countries ban foreign property buyers. For the demographic backdrop, read the great demographic repricing.

This article is general information compiled from the named public sources, not financial advice.

Primary sources: Zillow housing deficit analyses (2024 and 2025 updates); Congressional Research Service, "Estimates of a Housing Shortage" (2025); Up for Growth, Housing Underproduction in the U.S.; National Low Income Housing Coalition, The Gap; Pestel Institute, Sozialer Wohn-Monitor 2026 and prior studies; CMHC, Housing Shortages in Canada and Canada's Housing Supply Shortages: A New Framework; Centre for Cities, The Housebuilding Crisis (2023); Australia's National Housing Accord and National Housing Supply and Affordability Council reports; UN-Habitat adequate housing estimates; RAND Corporation construction cost comparison (2025).

Estimates as published; latest available as of August 2026. Methodologies differ as described above.